Mothering Myself

How well do I take care of my child?

In this post, I'm not referring to my physical child.  I am referring to the child inside me...inside each of us..the younger version of myself..the little girl who lives in my heart.

Exploring...
How can I distinguish her?  What are her needs?  What does she like?  What makes her happy?  How is she feeling right now?  Can I hear her?  What is she trying to tell me?

Do I know?  Do you know?

What's Worked...
Over the years I have learned different ways to connect with this child:  I have written with my non-dominant hand to have a dialogue with this little girl, I have made commitments to her, I have looked at her eyes in the mirror.

Message from Spirit
At this point in my journey, it feels like something different is required.  Something that I haven't been able to provide before, to this inner aspect of me.

As I think about what is needed, I look around the coffee shop and see:  "Never leave child unattended in chair"... says the sign on the high chair. "Never leave child unattended....."

No mistake.  Reading my reality.  A message from Spirit?  Trying to tell me and the Exploring Motherhood world something?

Is my child unattended?
I would say yes.  I am busy with other things!  Busy trying to make a living, keep a household, contribute to society.  But, when I look in my heart to see what is there, I feel pain.  (First I notice avoidance and then I feel pain.)  I have not been attending to my heart!

I have not been listening to what is needed!  I have forgotten the inner most part of me!

In the midst of life, I forgot to provide the deep love and nurturance for myself that is needed...to FEED me.  For many understandable reasons, I have drifted away from Mothering Myself in a way that provides unconditional love, support, encouragement, attention, adoration, and belief!  I have inherited a very human skill of being the Critical Mother to myself, but as for being the Nurturing Mother....that is something I continue to struggle with and work on continually!

Mothering Ourselves
Are our 'collective' inner children unattended?  Does they know we are there?  Are they waiting to be seen and rescued?

I offer some things to contemplate.

• How can we practice paying more attention to our insides?
• How can we nurture our hearts?
• How can we feed ourselves love and appreciation?

People talk all the time about self-care, but what does that really mean when it comes to matters of the heart?

Generate Love and Acceptance
For me, part of self-care is valuing the most valuable aspect of myself - my heart - by listening to what is says and listening to what it wants.  And part of mothering myself is being the wise mother who knows when to say "yes" and when to say "no".  Pay attention to my self.  Generate acceptance for who I am in this moment.  Be kind and loving to me, my heart, my child.

As I mother myself, I also mother my son. 

Part of exploring how I Mother Myself is exploring how it relates to how I mother my son.

Kids, all kids, want nothing more than the love, attention, and acceptance of their parents.

I saw it in my son's face at preschool this morning as I joined in for an hour of "Circle Time" singing songs and doing body movements with his class.  I saw how happy and proud Noah was to have his mom paying attention to him - his world and his friends.

In that moment, my son knew that he mattered.  He was being "attended to" and his heart was happy.

Perhaps that is all it takes for me as I practice generating more love and acceptance for myself...as I train in this lifelong practice of Mothering Myself.

more to come...

Exploring Generousity

As I was sitting outside in the sun this morning writing my "Morning Pages" I began thinking again about Motherhood.  I purposely wanted to share as I explored...so I came inside to write here instead.

Motherhood is about being generous - generously giving of our bodies, our energy, our time, our attention, our lives.  It is about developing another being's body, mind, and spirit....over the course of years.  It is about feeding another human being's heart, cells, neurology with Love.  It is about expanding ourselves beyond our preconceived perception of ourselves.  It is about providing nurturance, care, understanding and support.  And it is about creating and providing Safety and Home.

Some questions to think about...

• What happens when a Mother has nothing inside to give?  No Energy, no Love, no Patience, no Time, no "Stuff".
• Does the "stuff" to give come from somewhere else when it does not exist inside?
• How does a Mother find these things and fill herself with them?

There is no prerequisite to having a baby that the Mother needs to be filled and whole.

And, there is no guarantee that the "stuff" that was inside when you had the baby will always be there.

So I will begin and end this blog simply with these questions to explore.  I am exploring them myself.  I am looking inside to see where the energy is.  I am wondering where my sense of self has gone and how to get her back.  I am experimenting with rituals, exercises, prayers, mantras and all sorts of modalities to feed the self.  I am attempting to accurately access what I am doing and not doing in my life that adds and takes away from the "stuff" that I so much want to give to my child.

I invite you to explore, too.  And tell us what you find.

Is this Motherhood?

Tonight as I was chopping up vegetables for chicken soup, I began to wonder to myself, "Is this Motherhood?"

Easy enough question, but no easy answer.

What is Motherhood?

As I type, I notice my desire to capitalize the "M" in Motherhood, to denote a level of Respect...Regard...for Motherhood, because Motherhood truly is more than a job or a role. It is a Way of Being. It is a Passage of Life. And so I start to wonder....

Perhaps there is a difference between little "m" motherhood and capital "M" Motherhood. I have never thought of it that way. In my search to look deeper into Motherhood and what it means to the deepest part of me, I sense there is a difference.

"m" is for motherhood
My sense is that motherhood is the activity. The role. The duties. The responsibilities. Small "m" motherhood is what it takes to get a human being from point A (conception) to point B (responsible, independent adult). Carrying the fetus, giving birth, breastfeeding, care taking, teaching, role modeling, all motherhood. Perhaps chopping vegetables for chicken soup falls into this category. Small "m" motherhood = chopping vegetables to prepare soup for the family.

"M" is for Motherhood
Could it also be that chopping vegetables for chicken soup is Motherhood? In my gut I say "yes". In fact, it feels as though the question itself will lead to a deeper exploration.

For one absurdly tiny moment, while I was standing there at my kitchen counter chopping vegetables, I felt like a mother. It wasn't because of what I was doing. It was because of what I was being in that moment. I won't be able to describe it with any great detail, because it was fleeting and ever so subtle. It passed through me in an instant. I can't even grasp at it long enough to recreate it and describe it.

The best I can say is that, in that Motherhood moment, I felt In Charge, not in a bossy way, but in a strong way. I felt as though I was creating a masterpiece...a masterpiece not only of chicken soup, but of a healthy energy field for my self and my son. In that moment, I was caring more for the creation of the soup than I was for my self. I was more interested in the chopping as an experience of Creation than I was for how it turned out.

Motherhood, in that moment, was Service. Motherhood was Caring. And Motherhood was Generating a field of love and care through the act of chopping vegetables. At the deepest level that I can access right now, Motherhood was an in-the-moment connection with and expression of the Divine.

Do I hope and pray that that Motherhood experience repeats itself? Of course. The Right of Passage from childhood/young adulthood into Motherhood is a Journey away from Self and toward Service. I've been trudging that Passageway for a while now, always attempting to lean more toward the side of Service, but always ending up back on the side of Self.

Growing up the youngest in a family of four has so much to do with the fact that this Journey has been excruciatingly long. However, seen another way, I have used the story of the youngest as a crutch for an excruciatingly long time. :-)

I will save that for another exploration.

Contemplation for the Day

"How many times have I...."

You fill in the blank.

Tonight as I was upstairs getting Noah's pj's and Pull-ups....I did a usual routine of wetting a washcloth for what we have commonly come to call a "Washcloth Bath".

(Definition of Terms: Bath = normal tub routine; SplashBath = in the tub, but no plugging the tub....consists of running water, soap, and washcloth; Washcloth Bath = Noah's favorite because it doesn't involve physically getting into the tub...consists only of a wet washcloth to clean the 'really dirty' areas.)

As I wet the washcloth in the "really-needs-to-be-cleaned" sink, I had this deja vu feeling that I have done this before.....many times before. How many times have I wet a washcloth? A simple contemplative question, but rather profound.

Hmmm. Let's see. Every morning I wet a wash cloth to clean his little bottom (overnight potty training has not been a completed project as of yet). That equals 7 days a week, times 52 weeks in the year, for about three years since the fall-a-way of wipes. Add to that an average of 3 nights a week of washcloth baths over the course of 52 weeks in a year, over about 4 years...equals approximately:

1,716 Times I've WET THE WASHCLOTH!!!

That's a lot of washcloth wetting!

As a mother, we could add up any number of repetitive activities from wiping noses to washing bedsheets (that's a biggie for me since the Pullups don't seem to hold a Noah-size bladder) to pouring cereal. And we could laugh, pout, scream, cry, or smile in the process. Depends on the activity? Depends on the time of day/month/year? Depends on our mood?

Something else to contemplate for another time...

Welcome to Exploring Motherhood

There always has to be a first.

And so, in the name of exploration, I am exploring what it feels like to write a first post for Exploring Motherhood. Nervous stomach, a bit of disassociation, some excitement....and, in the moment, a tinge of sadness. Sad for what? Perhaps letting go of the 'one who stopped me' from writing in the first place.

Yes, there will be mistakes. Yes, I will be frozen with anxiety. Yes, there will be expectations and disappointments. And, yes, there will be things I will desperately want to change.

But, one thing that has never changed for me in all these years was my heart's calling to write.

And so be it. I am writing.

As I explore Motherhood on this first post, I ask "What is Motherhood?" I ask that to myself and I ask that to any future readers. I ask that without intending to come up with an answer. I ask that for the power of the question itself.

I ask that so that I, and perhaps others, can begin to investigate what Motherhood is to them. Not what it is to society...or the society of our parents. Not what it means to the other publications recent or historical. But, what is Motherhood, right here, right now, to me? What is Motherhood, right here, right now, to you?

Perhaps, if I ask that to myself and begin to look for answers, I may be able to distinguish what conclusions I have made about motherhood and what is unknown. Perhaps by asking this question and taking on the maturity of investigating and exploring Motherhood, I might be able to grow my self as a mother at the same time. That is my intention.

I welcome others to join me.